


To Mend And Defend

by fractalserpentine, HopeofDawn



Series: Sound and Fury [3]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hatchlings, Pre-Canon, Sparklings, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 06:03:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2098371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalserpentine/pseuds/fractalserpentine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the dark days before the War, a creator mech faces his creation, and the tough choices that lie ahead for them both ....</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Mend And Defend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Siadea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siadea/gifts).



“No no nonono!” The plump little hatchling scowled fiercely, faceplates folding into a unhappy grimace as he kicked and wriggled, batting away the new, finely-jointed digits that his creator was offering for incorporation. “Two pedes not enough--four pedes better! Want to be sharp tear pounce fast! Rrawr!” The round little protoform bounced twice in illustration, making the dusky white of his tiny armor pieces rasp and clang.

The hatchling paused, thinking about the sound. “But quiet,” he added, leaping atop the discarded body components in somewhat less-noisy illustration. The little pieces scattered.

“Bitlet …” Torsion sighed, careful to not let his exasperation show in either his field or his movements. “You said you wanted to fix, remember? Just like I do?” He had known from the first moment of kindling that this spark was going to be unique, something different than his other foundation-sparked creations. He hadn’t expected, however, for this bright little newspark to be quite so … obstinate.

“Yes!” the hatchling agreed, sitting upright on folded hindlimbs, blue optics bright and intent. “Fierce and fast and fix!” Then the hatchling reached out, placing tiny white claws atop Torsion's own far-larger, worn digits. “Be strong. Keep Creator safe. Make fixed,” the little mech said, suddenly serious.

Torsion let the shadow of a smile lift his plating. He cupped those little claws, ran a fingertip over the hatchling’s tiny helm. The fine little flakes of armor there felt velvety soft under his digits, and the hatchling rumbled in delight, pushing up for more gentle scritches. “You don’t need to keep me safe, little one. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” huffed the hatchling, as he grabbed at Torsion's digits, climbing his creator’s hand and clinging upside down to his fingers. “Gonna do it anyway.”

“Hm.” Torsion tried a different tactic. “Do you remember Overkill? He’s a very strong protector.” Biped hornframes were rare indeed, especially ones as large as Overkill. The mech had sacrificed most of his fast-clock processors for extra military hardware -- a symbiont simply didn’t have the spark output to support both. It wasn’t a choice that Traction would have considered, but he couldn’t deny that the frame suited Overkill and his carrier very well.

“Eee!” The hatchling dangled from the underside of Torsion's hand, gripping the much-larger mech’s fingers like the bars of an obstacle gym. Helpfully, Traction spread his digits a little more. “So tall strong big! But--” The hatchling freed one little set of talons and wriggled them in front of his faceplates, examining the limb. His other front pede began to slip. “Pedes so small. How can he fix? Eeep!” The hatchling lunged for a grip, scrabbled, then meeped as he clattered a few inches to the tabletop.

Torsion tickled his creation’s soft little belly, to squeals of delight. The short tumble had done the hatchling no damage -- even if this one was significantly more active than most other foundation-sparked hatchlings of the same age. “Do you remember Beastbox?” he asked gently. “He came to see your sparking. He’s very strong too -- and he has fingers, which are very good for fixing.”

“Beastbox yes, big strong--but not sharp. Want fingers sharp! And fast! And fix!” The hatchling grabbed at Torsion's finger-tips, pretending to gnaw. “Rawr!” Then he bounced upright again with a sparkling’s typical exuberance. “Like Xenon, or Turnabout, or Rasp, Creator, strong and sharp and fierce. Like them!”

Torsion felt a frisson of distress ripple through his field, despite his best efforts. Those names--Xenon, Turnabout, and Rasp were a flightframe, bladeframe, and serpentframe, respectively. What his hatchling was asking... was impossible. “Bitlet--those are all good frames. But none of them have fingers. How are you going to fix without fingers?” he said, hoping that his stubborn newspark would see reason. “You can’t fix with walking limbs, or flying ones. Not well--not the way you want to.”

Torsion’s own digits and supporting structures, battered and as badly in need of upgrading as they now were, were still highly specialized, with sensor suites and a myriad of precise, transforming structures that could be reshaped into the wide number of tools necessary for his craft. And his hands weren’t even half as complex as a medic’s.

Torsion had crafted medic frames before, and he could start on building one for the hatchling, of course. But the hatchling’s spark was still a Chronicler’s, a symbiont’s--it could never produce the kind of energy needed to support a medic’s functions. The dichotomy between frame and spark would cause codebase errors, corruption, even frame necrosis--and eventually, might even cause the spark itself to extinguish. Either way, he would be condemning his newspark to a lifetime of misery, which was not something Torsion was prepared to do.

“Don’t care,” the hatchling said stubbornly. “Want to run be sharp fix. Change walking to fixing?” The sparkling was far too young to transform into anything other than a basic protective ball, of course, but he was examining one of its own pedes with fierce concentration, wiggling it back and forth, armor shifting as if he were trying to reconfigure his frame. His protoform, lacking enough pieces and the coordination to move them precisely, rippled in alarming waves. When his efforts failed, the hatchling looked up, faceplates scrunched and unhappy. “I learn! I learn fix, Creator--want right pieces to protect, to make better.” He thought for a moment, then brightened. “Like carrier!”

“You want to be a carrier now?” Torsion said, trying to follow sparkling-logic and failing. “Sparklet--”

“No, no, want carrier. Be warm safe happy! But maybe, make fix like carrier? Grab and help and hold tight?” The hatchling said, obviously happy at this new idea. He waved spindly arms in the air, making wiggly motions with his tiny talons. “See?”

“That’s--” About to gently inform his stubborn creation how impossible that was, Torsion paused for a moment and considered the idea. A flightframe was out of the question--there were too many trade-offs for flight to allow for the installation of additional limbs. And a serpentframe’s basic structure would make extra limbs more of a burden than a help. But a bladeframe ….

A bladeframe was sturdy, strong--they tended to be independent creatures, less reliant on a carrier for protection. Their major disadvantage was the lack of fine motor skills, making them less versatile for other tasks than, say a mechkin. But perhaps, if he installed just one set, optimizing for dexterity and manipulation rather than data transmission … maybe, just maybe it could work. And if it did--it just might give his little stubborn newspark an edge, when it came time for him to survive in a world that no longer welcomed his kind.

“Let me draw up some designs for you to think about, alright?” Torsion asked his round little newspark, who grabbed ahold of his fingers with a chitter of delight. Torsion smiled gently. “I’ll need those back, you know, if I’m to find some parts to start with.”

“Eee!” The burbling hatchling surrendered his creator’s hand, and dashed a circle around the tabletop instead, little pedes going in every direction.

“We’ll try a few things, but I want you to let me know if anything is uncomfortable, alright? Just like normal.” Torsion hesitated over the racks and drawers of parts. These sections were dusty, long-disused.

The hatchling just raced another bouncing circuit over the tabletop, chirping and squealing, and Torsion shook his helm gently. He found the part in a drawer he’d never thought he’d use again, nestled in among the segments and flowered multitools of a Chronicler-carrier’s datacables. The datacable hub was a large, platelike piece, as big as the hatchling’s whole back, and Torsion hesitated.

No one, to his knowledge, had tried adding even a single pair of datacables to a symbiont -- especially one already as large as a bladeframe. In better times, he would have carefully and thoroughly gone over the power consumption calculations with other creator-mecha. But there were no others with whom to discuss this half-mad course of action, now -- none that he could reach on the limited bandwidths his allotment still allowed him. And he dared not load the hatchling into his cargo pod for a trip outside the crumbling gates of this enclave. If the wrong mech happened to do a spark-frequency scan ….

Would this work? Or would it be just one more way in which he ended up failing his creation? He’d waited so long to spark the little frame, waited in the vain hope that he could secure the proper permits, until his spark was swollen and heavy, until he could no longer bear the building potential. And the result of his crime was an innocent hatchling, a bright newspark already being framed too fast, being readied for a world that thought his kind disposable, of no greater importance or value than a quantum drive or data-stick.

“Ooh, give, give!” the hatchling chirruped, stretching little talons overhelm, optics fixed and avid on the silvery plate of metal.

But a symbiont could only be what he was -- precious and small, the memory of the planet. Just like Torsion could only be what *he* was -- a creator, first, foremost, and always. Torsion squared his shoulders, straightened his frame with careful deliberation.

Then he brought the cable hub to the table, and helped his creation mount the part to his tiny back, holding it carefully steady as the hatchling worked furiously to thread protometal through the complex folds of metal and wiring. The rest of the cable segments would come later; then the dexterous multitools, the long struts of limbs, the sharp blades of hide and flail-tipped tail, and the force multipliers to lift and move it all... and then the hatchling would be a mech, freed to prowl through the teeming dark of Cybertron.

“You are strong,” Torsion murmured gently, as his hatchling tested the part, tottering happily under the weight of his new burden. “And you are going to do great things in this world. I know it -- my little one, my Glit.”

**Author's Note:**

> And yes, the title is totally stolen from Reboot. Sometimes the classics are the best! :D


End file.
